President Donald Trump spent his campaign rally in North Dakota on Wednesday night tearing into Democrats, with blistering attacks on the party's national leaders and the state's vulnerable incumbent, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.
Trump, who attended the Fargo event to help boost GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer, who is challenging Heitkamp, took aim at Heitkamp every chance he got, coloring each attack with additional assaults on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who over the weekend said members of the Trump administration should be heckled when out in public.
"We need Kevin Cramer to replace liberal Democrat Heidi Headlamp in the Senate. When Heidi ran for office she promised to be independent vote for people of North Dakota, instead she went to Washington and immediately joined Chuck, you know who Chuck is, and Nancy, and now they have a new leader," Trump railed, prompting applause. "Who is their leader? Maxine Waters is their new leader."
"Maxine, she's a beauty," Trump added. "She practically was telling people the other day to assault. Can you imagine if I said the things she said?"
At another point, Trump gleefully pleaded for Democrats to keep Pelosi as their House leader.
"Please, please, please don't remove Nancy Pelosi," he said, "And please keep Maxine Waters on the air as your face and your mouthpiece for the Democratic Party."
Trump also levied several blows at Heitkamp, attacking the first-term lawmaker over her opposition to his tax-cut bill earlier this year and his party's failed Obamacare repeal bill last year.
"You need a senator who doesn't just talk like they’re from North Dakota, but who votes like they're from North Dakota," he said.
Trump, referring to the Supreme Court vacancy that opened up earlier Wednesday when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, also predicted, "Heidi will vote 'no' to any pick we make for the Supreme Court."
After Trump's rally, Heitkamp said she was "always willing to work with the president if he's helping North Dakota."
"And if he's not, I’ll speak up," she said.
Trump told the roaring crowd that Democratic lawmakers "want judges who will rewrite the Constitution any way they want to do it. Take away your Second Amendment, erase borders, throw open jailhouse doors, destroy freedoms."
"We must elect more Republicans," he said.
